Flowers of Evil 11 – Nightmare

An easy way to win me over: make your backgrounds look like impressionist hell. It’s really not difficult to please me visually at all.

The end result of that ride to the police station is a bit curious to me. I’m surprised the rumors didn’t spread like wildfire afterward. Surely someone who works at the station must have a kid who would have heard something vague about what happened that night? Nobody but Saeki’s friend seemed to have any idea that anything happened. The fact that there’s such a tight lid on Saeki going missing seems kind of crazy to me! It doesn’t exactly make everyone involved feel any better about what happened, but still.

Also, it seems that Kasuga and Saeki have broken things off amicably, but I bet that doesn’t last once Saeki gets a whiff of Kasuga warming up more to Nakamura. That jealousy should flare up mighty hard. We all want what we can’t have, right? It seems incredible that Saeki could still be jealous of anyone getting close to Kasuga after the night they had, but people have been jealous about way dumber things. If Saeki hops on the jealousy train, and the rumor mill still doesn’t go batshit bonkers, then I will most definitely call bullshit.

Back to Kasuga’s dream. I enjoy the super heavy-handed visualization of all the shit weighing him down. For an adult, the night Kasuga had would be pretty embarrassing. It’s safe to say you didn’t have a hot night out if you get picked up by the cops. But as long as nothing major occurred, the aftermath would mostly be, “Wow, that was really stupid. Hope I don’t do that again!” And they’d go on with their lives because they’re old and experienced enough to keep it in perspective. For Kasuga The Middle Schooler, however, this is basically The Worst Night Ever. Saeki and Nakamura both found out he is a fraud. He made his parents incredibly upset; they’re sad and stuff because of him. And, worst of all, he’s dragged back to the town he hates, more convinced than ever that he’ll never escape its vile clutches.

Is it any wonder, then, that the visuals of Kasuga’s dream are so overwrought? He’s literally walking through his town as it morphs into some industrial hell from Hideaki Anno’s nightmares while the flowers of evil sprout and watch him all around. It’s bad, but it’s surely not that bad, right?? Well, it’s technically probably the worst thing to happen to Kasuga in his entire life, so yeah, in that context, it is that bad. He can’t conceive of any context in which things could possibly get worse. Thus . . . this. The sheer moroseness of Kasuga’s dream is almost adorable in its own way. The flowers swirling in the air while Nakamura berates Kasuga one last time in his dream is the cherry on top.

So then Kasuga has a change of heart. I’m sure it will go swell. Nakamura will be totally accepting of him and they’ll be friends and stuff and live happily ever after. The end. That’s obviously how Kasuga would prefer it to go, but his play at savior will likely not be that smooth. He’s trying to help himself as much as he’s trying to help her. Nakamura would be able to sniff out that bullshit pretty quickly, I imagine. Would it actually matter to her? I dunno. She’s definitely not going to welcome Kasuga with open arms, though, that’s for damn sure. At least not right away. Maybe it would be different if they had a bit of fun.

More worrying: Kasuga has left his beloved Baudelaire broken and betrayed. What despair! What despair!

22 Comments

This show has left me feeling angrier and angrier since Saeki and Kasuga got together. Rather than being sorta creepy and sorta cool the story has devolved into a boring melodrama I would expect to see in a fucking Makoto Shinkai movie. Where did it all go wrong?

On another note, I hate every single of these characters. I hate the main case of Aku no Hana more than Reccoa Londe, Katz Kobayashi, Hathaway, and even Quess fucking Paraya. They should rename it Aku no Waifu Wars or maybe Aku no “Are you frustrated?”

That’s a pretty interesting take on it. I interpreted that dream sequence a little differently, I think. While Saeki and Nakamura are both their own reasonably complex characters, for Kasuga, at least, they’re also a lot like the devil and angel on each shoulder trying to coax him down either the path of normalcy or the path of deviancy.

I see the dream, primarily, as symbolic of Kasuga actually making a decision, or starting to anyway. He slowly leaves the normalcy of the town, as if gravitating towards the field of the flowers of evil, and right in the centre of it is Nakamura. I see it as him finally starting to reject his lingering desire for normalcy and beginning to walk the path of the deviant for realsies.

My main problem with that interpretation is the assumptions of normalcy. With Saeki, I think the reason she was so interested in him is because he WASN’T normal; she saw him as an intellectual and put him on a pedestal. With Kasuga, I don’t think he ever strove for normalcy. At the beginning he prided himself for being better than his classmates, and in fact, only in episode 10 does he come to realization that he is in fact normal, to his utter dismay. Kasuga never wanted to be normal.

I do agree that there is some juxtaposition between Saeki and Nakamura, though.

My point wasn’t that Saeki herself is or wants normalcy, my point was that to Kasuga, she represents normalcy, if perhaps the exemplary case of normalcy. She is what he would be expected to desire, what society would expect him to be like and want to attain. In his mind she represents order.

I strongly disagree Kasuga never wanted normalcy. IIRC he outright said to Nakamura before they trashed the classroom that he just wanted to be normal. It was definitely a conflicting desire, but at first he was terrified of what society would think of him. His continuous exclamation that he isn’t a pervert/deviant for however long shows how much he didn’t want to be truly different.

I’m with Erif in that Kasuga didn’t want to be “normal” — at least, what normal meant in this town. It means being dull, unspectacular, mediocre. He wanted to be special; just not the kind of special that brings judging eyes.

It will get bad. And then it will get worse, real quickly. And then we will all be like, “Jeez, so much fuss over some gym clothes? Clothes are evil, we should just burn ‘em all. Down with the clothes!”
Or well, depends on the pacing, I’m thinking they might have to do the wrap-up with DVD-only extra episodes. Or even better, a movie. Or maybe I’m just thinking wishfully. Meh, we will see.

It’s quite enjoyable to read your view every week, you’re calling just about every other twist before it even airs.

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